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Journal Article
On the rotation of the earth, drunken sailors, and exchange rate policy
A growing number of observers seem to believe that official foreign exchange intervention offers a useful tool for managing the dollar?s descent. In particular situations, official transactions can sometimes produce temporary changes in exchange rates, but intervention does not permit countries to avoid or substantially modify trends in the movements of their exchange rates. At best, intervention is of very limited value.
Journal Article
Voluntary export restraints: the cost of building walls
An illustration of the cost and employment effects of Japanese voluntary export restraints on new-car imports to the U.S.
Journal Article
Intervention and the dollar
A study of U.S. intervention in the foreign exchange market between 1984 and 1987, concluding that exchange-rate stability among nations depends on fundamental macroeconomic policies, not intervention.
Working Paper
The Evolution of the Federal Reserve Swap Lines since 1962
In this paper, we describe the evolution of the Federal Reserve?s swap lines from their inception in 1962 as a mechanism to forestall claims on US gold reserves under Bretton Woods to their use during the Great Recession as a means of extending emergency dollar liquidity. We describe the Federal Reserve?s successes and failures. We argue that swaps calm crisis situations by both supplementing foreign countries? dollar reserves and by signaling central-bank cooperation. We show how swaps exposed the Federal Reserve to conditionality and raised fears that they bypassed the Congressional ...
Working Paper
On the evolution of U.S. foreign-exchange-market intervention: thesis, theory, and institutions
Attitudes about foreign-exchange-market intervention in the United States evolved in tandem with views about monetary policy as policy makers grappled with the perennial problem of having more economic objectives than independent instruments with which to achieve them. This paper?the introductory chapter to our history of U.S. foreign exchange market intervention?explains this thesis and summarizes our conclusion: The Federal Reserve abandoned frequent foreign-exchange-market intervention because, rather than providing a solution to the instruments-versus-objectives problem, it interfered ...
Working Paper
Federal Reserve Policy and Bretton Woods
During the Bretton Woods era, balance-of-payments developments, gold losses, and exchange rate concerns had little influence on Federal Reserve monetary policy, even after 1958 when such issues became critical. The Federal Reserve could largely disregard international considerations because the U.S. Treasury instituted a number of stop-gap devices?the gold pool, the general agreement to borrow, capital restraints, sterilized foreign-exchange operations?to shore up the dollar and Bretton Woods. These, however, gave Federal Reserve policymakers the latitude to focus on domestic objectives and ...
Journal Article
The dollar in the eighties
An analysis of exchange-rate patterns and a discussion of factors thought to influence the strength of the dollar in the foreign exchange market.
Journal Article
Replacing the dollar with special drawing rights--will it work this time?
The head of China?s central bank is calling for countries to replace the U.S. dollar as an international reserve currency with something called SDRs. Created by the IMF way back in 1969 for that purpose, SDRs never caught on. While SDRs may be declared an official international reserve asset today, they are not likely to become the world?s key international currency anytime soon. In the meantime, countries in China?s current predicament--acquiring more dollars than they think prudent--could avoid such risks in the future by allowing their currencies to appreciate.
Journal Article
Foreign economic growth and the dollar
Analysts caution that rapid foreign economic growth could induce a depreciation of the dollar, as international investors diversify their portfolios in favor of higher returns abroad. Although we cannot establish a simple relationship between foreign growth and the dollar, we can conclude that if a desire to diversify out of dollars lies dormant among investors, faster growth abroad may stir it.
Working Paper
Even Keel and the Great Inflation
Using IV-GMM techniques and real-time data, we estimate a forward looking, Taylor-type reaction function incorporating dummy variables for even-keel operations and a variable for foreign official pressures on the U.S. gold stock during the Great Inflation. We show that when the Federal Reserve undertook even-keel operations to assist U.S. Treasury security sales, the FOMC tended to delay monetary-policy adjustments and to inject small amounts of reserves into the banking system. The operations, however, did not contribute significantly to the Great Inflation, because they occurred during ...